


455. mother's prayer

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [212]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 09:54:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9486002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Amelia wants to love them, both of them, her two baby girls grown up all jagged.





	

These children are Amelia’s, and they are strangers. She can’t help but love them anyways – Sarah easier to love, maybe, sitting on the couch under the warm lamplight and saying Helena’s name with something terrible, soft, sad. Amelia didn’t understand that sadness at the time, but leaving Siobhan’s house she does: in the lamplight of her memory she could love Helena too. Not the Helena of fact, the one tied to a beam and snarling. The one in her memory. The one who, looking at Amelia, looked for one moment afraid.

Amelia can tell herself that Helena looked afraid. If Helena was afraid, in that moment, it will make her easier to love.

And Amelia wants to love them, both of them, her two baby girls grown up all jagged. Sarah has a foster mother (she should not trust her foster mother) looming over her shoulder, but Amelia could – be a part of her life, certainly. She could reach for Helena too. Maybe someday, Helena would even reach back to her.

Amelia is in the car. Amelia is driving away. Amelia can feel it tugging at her, that empty space inside of her she’s been ignoring her whole life. She wants to go back – to the two of them, make them three again. Say: _I am sorry that I left you, and that I made you into two separate things_.

The light in the basement had been pale and they had looked like ghosts underneath it, the two of them; ghosts of themselves, perhaps, ghosts of what they could have been. Sarah crouched next to Helena. Sarah trying to lean back, trying to distance herself, but leaning forward anyways. Helena straining forward with all of her might and Sarah not noticing. _You were one person, once_ , Amelia could’ve pled. If she’d had more time. _If you don’t look after each other who will? Me? I can’t anymore, I already proved that I can’t. You have to help each other. You are both leaning forward, if you could just see it. You are both already reaching._

But the police, banging on the door. Sarah and Amelia running. Sarah and Amelia leaving Helena behind, screaming down in the basement. And then Amelia leaving Sarah. She regrets it. She regrets all of it. But how would the story changed, if she had stayed? Would she have been arrested too? What help would that have been?

But how would the story changed, if she had stayed? Would the scientists have even let her hold them one time before they took them away, and made them into something other than what they should have been?

Maybe it would have been a different story. She could have run with both of them. It would have been – difficult, to keep them both safe, but maybe Amelia could have managed it. The whole car ride she can’t stop herself from pressing both hands to her belly; she is imagining a world where it is the easiest and most natural thing for Sarah to reach for Helena’s hand. And then Helena would take it, and that would be the end of that story. Imagine it. Imagine it.

It is difficult to feel that it’s not her fault. She wonders if they blame her for it. She wouldn’t blame _them_ , for that blame.

She will lay it out in words for Sarah, when they meet. She’ll tell her: I’m sorry that I wasn’t in your life before, but I’m here now, and I know I can’t be a mother to you but I can be – something. Turn to Helena, say: I know you don’t want me to be a mother to you, but surely we can make some sort of family.

To both of them: I know that you are scared. I know that people have left you before, I can see it in your eyes. I know that I am the first great leaving. But I came back. We can fix this. If you can’t reach for her hand, yet, you can reach for mine. I promise you these things will come in time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
